Make-ahead Sausage Breakfast Casserole

Make-ahead meals are the best.

Not everything can be made ahead of time, but thank goodness there are some meals that are even better because they’re made in advance. This Sausage & Spinach Breakfast Casserole is one of those meals!

Here you assemble everything before you go to sleep, then all you have to do when you wake up is turn the oven on and bake. What you end up with is a big dish of eggy custard soaked bread dotted with sausage, cheese, spinach, and tomatoes, that you can scoop onto everyone’s plates. And if you happen to have leftovers, this dish reheats beautifully!

The first thing you want to do is cut up a good quality loaf of bread. Here I used my Brown Butter Sandwich Bread, but you could also purchase a sourdough type loaf of sandwich bread. Make sure not to use breads that are really crusty.

With this dish, you want the bread to be a day or two old (in other words, on the dry side) so the bread doesn’t get soggy. If you’re using fresh bread, you can dry it out a bit by toasting it in the oven (350 for 10 minutes or so, until the cubes are golden brown).

Place the cubed bread in a casserole dish along with cooked sausage, cooked spinach, diced tomatoes, and cheese.

Then pour an egg/milk/cream custard mixture all over the top:

You will notice that the custard doesn’t soak immediately into the bread, but by the time you wake up in the morning, the liquid will be absorbed.

Then in the morning, bake and eat!

And by the way, feel free to play with the ingredients here. You can add bell peppers, sauteed mushrooms, or other favorite ingredients instead of spinach and tomato. Enjoy!

Make-ahead Sausage Breakfast Casserole

Yield: Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

• butter, for greasing
• 1 lb fresh sweet Italian sausage, cooked and crumbled
• 1 standard loaf day-old white bread (6 cups cubed)
• 1.5 cups grated cheddar cheese
• 9 oz bag fresh spinach, cooked and drained of excess moisture
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 8 large eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Butter an 8×12 casserole dish, and set it aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine the cooked sausage, cubed bread, cheddar, spinach, and tomatoes, and toss together well until evenly distributed. Pour this mixture into the buttered casserole dish.
3. In another bowl, whisk to combine the eggs, until lightly blended. Add the heavy cream and milk, and add a big pinch of salt and pepper. Whisk until smooth, then pour it all over the bread cube mixture in the casserole dish. You will notice that the liquid does not completely cover all of the bread, and that’s fine. By the time you wake up in the morning, the liquid should be absorbed. Cover the casserole dish with plastic wrap or foil and store in the fridge overnight, or for up to 18 hours.
4. When you wake up in the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and bake the casserole for 1 hour until the custard has set and the top is golden brown. Serve and enjoy!

All images and text ©Fifteen Spatulas.